The economy is picking up steam again.  Corporate profit outlooks look better. More people are getting jobs. 

But success appears differently than it did a few years ago.  You don’t see the crazy breakneck dot com days anymore.  Instead, the slow boil of business activity is taking the form of a series of high-profile mergers and acquisitions.

IAC is buying Ask Jeeves.  SBC is buying AT&T.  Oracle bought PeopleSoft.

When I look at today’s landscape, I realize that there’s another spate of mergers and acquisitions in the offing--in the blogging world.  The fact is, there’s way too many blogs.  At last count, there are several hundred thousand active blogs--and those are just the ones with some form of Harry Potter icon or font style.

There will be a wave of blog M&As.  You can trust me on this.

And I’m going to start it.

Because I thought about it, and I realized that the Oracle/PeopleSoft deal got its start from a single press release. All Larry Ellison did was announce his intent to buy.  Then the lawyers and bigwigs got involved, and a bunch of stuff happened and eventually Oracle won.  But it all began with a press release.

To that end, I’d like to officially present the below press release to the business and analyst community.  I know that by doing this, I may shock some people.  That’s just the way things are.  Every journey begins with a single step.

So here we go.

Geese Aplenty Announces Intent to Acquire Wil Wheaton Dot Net.

OAKLAND, Calif. (March 23, 2005)—Geese Aplenty today announced its intent to acquire famed celebrity blogger Wil Wheaton’s personal website.  Terms of the opening bid were not disclosed, but included a combination of cash, stock, and vintage Star Trek trading cards.

“Geese Aplenty, Inc. believes that Geese Aplenty and Wil Wheaton Dot Net have excellent synergies that make a merger inevitable,” said Greg Howard, President & CEO of Geese Aplenty.  “Wil Wheaton used to be on Star Trek, and I used to watch Star Trek.  Also, he has a lot of readers and I want them.”

Mr. Howard was less forthcoming on the topic of whether Wil Wheaton Dot Net’s current staff would be retained if the merger was successful.  “I don’t think we’d make any sudden changes and alienate the customer base,” he said. “But in the long term?  I dunno.  If you think about it, do you really need Wil Wheaton to write Wil Wheaton Dot Net?  I’m not convinced.  Maybe we could get Adam Rich.”

Wil Wheaton did not return calls for comments.  This is mostly because no one has his phone number.  In fact, he hasn’t even returned Mr. Howard’s emails.

“I’m pretty sure he got my emails on the subject,” Mr. Howard said.  “I mean, I don’t know exactly what his email is.  But I sent them to wil at wilwheaton.net, and ensigncrusher at wilwheaton.net, and a few others.  I’m sure at least one of them got through.  I also sent a letter to his fan club.  It was on very official-looking stationery.”

Oddly enough, Corey Feldman--who co-starred with Wheaton in the hit 1986 movie Stand By Me--did return calls for comment.

“Sure, I’ll go on record about this if it’ll get me on television,” Mr. Feldman said. “Will this be picked up by Celebrity Justice?”

About Geese Aplenty
Geese Aplenty leverages corporate synergies that integrate top-line revenue efficiencies into enterprise solutions that power industry verticals.  Also, sometimes it talks about what Greg did on the weekend.

About Wil Wheaton Dot Net
Wil Wheaton is an actor and author.  He saved the Enterprise several times and kissed Ashley Judd.